Marriage and The Family

The other day one of my daughters was doing some work experience, and she got into conversation with a woman who told her that she was living with her boyfriend. They had been together for some time. My daughter asked her if they were going to get married. The woman replied that they weren’t going to, because marriage is just a piece of paper.

Our topic this morning is Marriage and the Family. In a minute we’re going to turn to Malachi 2. But let me first say this so that we can understand the issues at stake there. Marriage matters. Marriage is not just a piece of paper, any more than a bank note is just a piece of paper. I have here a £10 note. And here is a piece of plain paper – just the same size. Why is one valuable and the other worthless? Because this piece of paper has nothing on it. But this £10 note has a promise on it. It says, “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £10”, and it’s signed by the Chief Cashier for the Governor and the Company of the Bank of England.

What gives it its value is the promise that goes with it, and the fact that we can rely on the promise to be kept. Even in the unlikely event that the Bank of England decided not to keep that promise, the whole weight of the political, social and economic structure of this country would enforce it and make sure that the Bank of England did keep the promise. Otherwise, the economic life of this nation would go into meltdown. It would be a national catastrophe and massive long-term suffering would ensue. It is vital that promise is kept. The Bank of England must keep faith. Thankfully, we know that it will. We don’t have to lie awake at night worrying whether our bank notes will be worthless by morning.

Here is my marriage certificate. It has been signed by Vivienne, by me and by witnesses. This certificate confirms that Vivienne and I made promises to each other on 28 March 1981. Vivienne promised me that she would be my wife and would continue to love me “for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health … till death us do part…” And I promised to Vivienne that I would be her husband in the same unconditional way, whatever happens between that day and the day one of us dies. I depend on that promise of Vivienne’s every day of my life.

And it isn’t just the minister or registrar and the families who witness the marriage. It is God. Whether the marriage is in a church or a Registry Office or anywhere else, and whether or not the bride and groom acknowledge the fact, God is a witness as well. And Jesus said that when a man and a woman marry, God joins them together. So this certificate is the evidence of the fact that God has joined Vivienne and me, as well as the evidence of the unconditional promises that we made. This is not just a piece of paper.

The other week the auction house Sotheby’s sold an exceedingly rare first edition of Shakespeare’s plays. I suppose that too could be called just a piece of paper. It went for £2.8m. I wouldn’t swap my marriage certificate for that volume of Shakespeare. It is priceless to me. Mind you, you can get a copy of a marriage certificate, can’t you?

What gives a marriage certificate its value is the promise that goes with it, and the fact that we can rely on the promise to be kept. When a nation’s family life is healthy, then if people do toy with the idea of not keeping their marriage vows, the whole weight of the political, social and economic structure of the country co-operates to enforce them and to make sure that the marriage promises are kept, for the good of everybody. Otherwise, the whole social fabric of the nation begins to go into meltdown. It is a national catastrophe and massive long-term suffering ensues.

It is vital that those promises are kept. Husbands and wives must keep faith. Or, because we’re all in families one way or another, we all end up lying awake at night worrying whether those marriage certificates will be worthless by morning. We are not yet past the point of no return in our society – or at least that is my hope and prayer. But we are perilously close to the tipping point at which the meltdown will become unstoppable. We need to cry to God for mercy, and for a turn of the tide.

Why does marriage matter? Let’s hear God’s perspective on this. We can do that because in Malachi 2 we can hear him talking to his people through Malachi. Please have that open in front of you. Malachi is the last book of Old Testament and Malachi 2.10-16 is there on p 961. God is speaking to the people of Judah. This is after the return from the Babylonian exile and about 400 years before the coming of Christ. It was a time of spiritual decline, scepticism about the word of God, neglect of God’s commands and widespread breakdown of family life. In other words, they were in a situation disturbingly similar to our own in this country today.

I have four points to make from these verses – and you can see them on the sermon outline that’s on the insert in the service sheet.


First, GOD’S PEOPLE HAVE BROKEN FAITH WITH ONE ANOTHER

Verse 10:

Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?

The people Malachi are addressing here are the Jews – the covenant people of God. So when he says “Have we not all one Father?” he’s thinking primarily in that narrow sense. In our terms, from a New Testament perspective, he’s talking to the wider church – those who call themselves Christians and claim allegiance to Christ. And let’s remember that constitutionally this country claims to be Christian and to live under the rule of Christ, and what is more 70% of the population call themselves Christian.

However, in another sense, all people are God’s people in the sense that God is the creator of us all. And that’s very important when we come to think about marriage and family, because marriage is not just an institution for believers. It is a creation ordinance – a gift of God to everyone. Hence the foundational family life texts in the Bible come in Genesis 1 and 2:

God blessed [man and woman] and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for a man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Marriage and the family life that flows from it is built into the very fabric of creation as God designed it. And he commanded it because he wanted us to know his blessings. That is right at the start of the Old Testament.

What is the situation by the time we come to the end of the Old Testament, to Malachi? God’s people – that’s us – are breaking faith with one another. What does that mean? It means breaking promises, breaking trust, being unfaithful.

How is that happening here? Verse 11:

Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.

We have married the daughters of foreign gods. Now let’s be clear, the issue here is not race. The issue here is idolatry, because the Lord had warned them that marrying those who worshipped false gods would drag God’s people into the same idolatry – and he had been proved right. But there is another underlying issue: this was forbidden, so these relationships were entered into in clear breach of God’s commands. What’s the equivalent for us today? Certainly the issue of believers marrying unbelievers remains. But there is also the wider application to relationships that are contrary to God’s clear commands. Casual sexual relationships, homosexual relationships, and co-habitation without marriage all fall into that category.

In the mid 1960’s, the proportion of women marrying for the first time who lived with their husbands before marriage was 5%. By the 1990’s, it was around 70%. In 1964, the proportion of births that took place outside marriage was 7%. In 2002 it was 41%. 24% of dependent children lived in a lone-parent family in 2004. In 1971 it was 8%. 1 in 10 children lived with a co-habiting couple. Very few cohabitations last. Only 17 per cent of cohabitations survive 5 years or more and only 7 per cent last 10 years or more. But even now 60 per cent of marriages last for life. Cohabiting couples are six and a half times more likely to split up after the birth of a child than a married couple. And those who cohabit before marriage are 60 per cent more likely to have divorced after eight years of marriage.

Back in Judah, even where the marriages were in line with God’s will in the first place there is a problem. So, verse 14b:

… you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

What’s a covenant? It’s a binding promise. You’ve broken the promise you made to your wife, God says. Verse 15b:

… do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

But in all these ways, we fall under the same rebuke as those Jews 2400 years ago.

A century ago there were a few hundred divorces each year in the UK. In 1961 there were 25,000. In 2004 there were 160,000.

God’s people have broken faith with one another. That’s the first point.


Secondly, WHEN WE BREAK FAITH WITH ONE ANOTHER WE ARE ALSO BREAKING FAITH WITH GOD

We “profane the covenant of our fathers” (verse 10). We “desecrate that sanctuary the Lord loves” (verse 11). The sanctuary is the temple. In New Testament terms, the temple is both Christ himself, and the church which is the body of Christ. So in exactly this context of sexual immorality, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6.19:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you… You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.

And as we heard earlier from Ephesians 5, marriage reflects the relationship between Christ and the church. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. When we break faith, we are dishonouring Christ and desecrating his body and his bride.

We cannot isolate the way we treat one another from the way we relate to God. When we break faith with one another, we break faith with him too. That’s point two.


Thirdly, GOD FINDS BREAKING FAITH REPULSIVE

That is literally true. When we break faith with one another and we break faith with God, our relationship with God is cut off and we are repelled from him. A gulf is created not just in our families but between us and God. finds breaking faith repulsive.

When we break faith, it is watched closely by God. Verse 14: “the Lord is acting as the witness”. It is a detestable thing. Verse 11: “a detestable thing has been committed in Israel”. It is a desecration of what God loves. 1.2: “I have loved you,” says the Lord. God loves those he witnesses being wounded by unfaithfulness. Verse 12:

As for the man who does this [that is, rejecting God’s command by marrying a pagan woman], whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob – even though he brings offerings to the Lord Almighty.

It’s no good putting up a good spiritual front, coming to church, saying all the rights things, whilst blatantly and unrepentantly disobeying God. Breaking faith is hated by God. And he hates the violence – both physical (sometimes) and emotional (always) that is involved in breaking faith. Verse 16:

“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty.

Because God knows what is best for us all, and wants what is best for us all and commands us to live in a way that is best for us all, when we reject his commands and break faith in family life, we cause great suffering as a result of what you might call our emotional violence. You can see that happening here in Judah – verse 13:

Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask “Why?”

Life is going badly for them. They’re miserable. They are suffering. And they’re blaming God. But the reason for their suffering lies in the breakdown of marriage and family life brought on by the fact that they are breaking faith. Verse 14:

You ask “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

And we experience the same thing all around us and in our own families too. The environment is tough for parents. Much on the media is promoting promiscuity, maligning marriage, and encouraging illegitimacy. And what is the result of it all? Everyone gets hurt – and especially the children.

60,000 children live in care – 98% due to family breakdown. Those in care are 50 times more likely to be imprisoned and 60 times more likely to be homeless.

In 2003 there were 32,000 children on the child protection register.

1 in every 5 pregnancies is now ended by abortion. In 2003 there were 180,000 abortions, 80% of them funded by the NHS.

The direct and indirect cost of family breakdown to the economy is estimated to be about £30 billion.

Three quarters of a million children have no contact with their fathers following the breakdown of their relationship. More than half of convicted young offenders have absent fathers.

As Professor A H Halsey, writes: “No one can deny that divorce, separation, birth outside marriage and one-parent families as well as cohabitation and extra-marital sexual intercourse have increased rapidly. Many applaud these freedoms. But what should be universally acknowledged is that the children of parents who do not follow the traditional norm (i.e. taking on personal, active and long-term responsibility for the social upbringing of the children they generate) are thereby disadvantaged in many major aspects of their chances of living a successful life. On the evidence available such children tend to die earlier, to have more illness, to do less well at school, to exist at a lower level of nutrition, comfort and conviviality, to suffer more unemployment, to be more prone to deviance and crime, and finally to repeat the cycle of unstable parenting from which they themselves have suffered... The evidence all points in the same direction, is formidable, and tallies with common sense.”

These things are true on average, and we have to take the impact of unfaithfulness and the breakdown of family life seriously. But, especially if we fall into some of these categories ourselves, what we must not do is become fatalistic. We are not trapped by our personal histories, because Christ sets us free. In him, we can overcome these influences and break the cycle.

Let me speak personally for a moment. I went to a private school. And I remember very vividly how as a teenager I heard that the divorce rate amongst those who had attended private schools was considerably higher than among those who went to state schools. It might sound silly – but that upset me a lot. For a while, I felt my fate was sealed. But of course, it wasn’t and it isn’t. We are not the prisoners of statistics – we are the servants of Christ. And he sets us free to live to please him, in obedience to his word. What we cannot avoid, though, is the fact that when we break with one another, we cause great suffering.

God witnesses all of it – there is nowhere for us to hide from him. And God finds breaking faith repulsive. And yet, despite all that, he never breaks faith with his people. In fact, that is why he hates it so much. It is utterly contrary to his character. 3.6:

I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

Then the final point is this:


Fourthly, GOD CALLS US TO RETURN TO HIM

Because God himself keeps faith, there is always hope for us, whatever we have done. There is always forgiveness in Christ if we return to him. And not just forgiveness. For us as individuals, for us as a church in this country, and for us as a nation, there is great blessing to found in returning to God and in living in obedience to his word and his ways. That’s wonderfully expressed in 4.2:

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.

And again in 4.6:

He [the coming prophet] will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers…

That is, when we turn back to God, broken family relationships will be restored. There is great blessing in obedience. But if we don’t return, the suffering will simply intensify. So 4.6 goes on:

… or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.

We have to be quite clear that there can be no restoration of our relationship with God without also a renewed commitment to obedience to his commands. So 4.4 says:

Remember the laws of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

And now after the coming of Christ, we need to add: Remember the words of Jesus – not least on marriage and divorce. And learn to be faithful. Faithful to God. Faithful to one another. Faithful in singleness. Faithful in marriage. Faithful to our families. 2.16b:

So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.

Twenty years ago this year one of the reactors of the nuclear plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded. There is still an exclusion zone the size of Greater London. Thousands of people have died and even in the UK there remain areas where farms face post-Chernobyl controls. One survivor, Ekaterina, says she remembers the sunny day back in 1986 when tragedy struck. "I know lots of widows now because of the accident. So many lives were destroyed by Chernobyl. It's a terrible waste."

The Chernobyl disaster, it seems to me, is a good illustration of the catastrophe that occurs when breaking faith in marriage and family life reaches epidemic proportions. The sun still shines. The buildings in the towns and villages still stand. Plants grow and animals are oblivious. But human lives are devastated. And the impact of it reaches across the world and down the generations.

Sex is a powerful thing. When it’s contained by faithfulness within marriage as God made it to be, and when it’s channelled according to his design, then it’s a tremendous blessing. The warmth that is generated within family life powers the whole nation. But when those God-given restraints are burst open as more and more people break faith in marriage and family life, that power that should be such a source of blessing instead lays waste vast swathes of society.

None of us is unaffected by the explosion of breaking faith that’s been taking place over the last generation. Some of us have been directly on the receiving end. Some of us, no doubt, have broken faith ourselves. Others have been caught up indirectly in the fall-out. All too many of us carry the scars – or the still open wounds.

For all of us, there is hope. And that hope is found in Jesus. Where forgiveness is needed and asked for, Jesus gives it. The debts to God that we have amassed because of our failures, he has already written off at the cross. Where emotional healing is needed, Jesus provides it – though healing takes time. As Isaiah said prophetically of Jesus:

… the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Or as Romans 8 puts it:

Therefore [that is, because of the grace of God and the cross of Christ], there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

So we don’t need to be afraid. But we do need to return to God, by faith in Christ. And we need to keep on turning to him, day in and day out. And with his help, in whatever state of life God has placed us, we need to commit ourselves to keeping faith – in our singleness, in our families, in our marriages. And then we will know God’s presence, and we’ll be on the receiving end of his faithfulness to us and we’ll know his overflowing, abundant blessing.

That doesn’t mean life will be easy. It won’t be this side of heaven. We continue to live in a fallen world and all around us people will continue to break faith. As the apostle Paul put it so plainly, “we have to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”. But we will know God’s blessing now, and that includes being able to look forward to the total blessing of the resurrection life. And by the grace of God, the tide will turn and the sea of suffering caused by breaking faith will recede, and the blessings of faithful family life will spread more and more widely once again.

Let’s be praying that it will be so. And let’s be working for it to be so. We need to be a distinctive community. We need to bear witness to the society around us that there is another way. By what we teach and by how we live, we need to show that faithfulness hand in hand with forgiveness works.
So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.